Insinuations

I have received some emails from people referencing a constantamend1 poster who insinuates that I am a poster "named" or "from" Bermuda, neither of which is true.

It appears that constamend1 is David Trout of the M&A Researcher or a present/former employee of the publication (given some of the links that I have seen).

I know a few people who have had some interesting conversations with Mr. Trout early on during the course of this merger which caused me to not cite the publication. I have expanded whom I have spoken to regarding the publication and have made the choice to continue not citing them. If readers feel that there is value in that publication, they can buy his reports, or find some for free from various sources. It is my opinion that readers should get as much information as possible from multiple sources.

Whether Mr. Trout (or his employee) disagrees with my position, or simply is frustrated because I do not cite them is unclear, but it appears that they are engaging in trying to discredit this site. Calls to the publication all go unanswered.

I post this as an answer to those that send e-mails regarding the Internet posting activity.

THank you very much. I don't know how he gets any research done. And that research is obviously one-sided. He spends all day, everyday posting on the Yahoo message board. He slams anyone who posts anything not agreeing with his opinion....actually...he never really gives an opinion...just a belittling response.

crfceo

I responded to the issue here simply because I got some e-mail regarding the subject. Typically, I would not bother with such a response, but the activity seems to have continued for a few months now.

I feel the best situation is to simply let the issue fade off, as it appears that the poster carries an interest in only the merger.

If there is an agenda to discredit myself or this site, it will only be exacerbated by keeping the issue "alive".

I made my statement, will not engage the poster on line, and will not further the agenda of this person by bringing the issue up anywhere else. Hopefully people can come to their own conclusions without perpetuating the issue any further.

A Continuation

"Agreed on our pal, Savery. He actually monitors this board and is convinced I'm someone else, going so far as to mis-indentify me in his blog! Classic stuff. He used to show up on here and the XM board as various aliases, but has since vanished. Big surprise there."

The answer

I realized this long ago, and several people have emailed me some interesting links. I have also had conversations with others that I found very interesting. Costamend1 used to be const1amend. With the older alias, he used to tout the M&A Researcher website. After being called out on it the screen name changed from const1amend to constamend1. Additionally, this person has, at a minimum, stated that he was associated with the M&A Researcher. Adding fuel to the fire, there are a few posts where this person mistakenly used the screen name "MARESEARCHER" in the middle of conversations. My characterization of vthis individual was that he is "either David Trout or a current/former employee" That is accurate in that at a minimum this individual has acknowledged an association with the publication.

I peruse several boards now and then, because there are sometimes links to them on our traffic, but had missed this latest edition of the conspiracy theory. Funny in that both people who have come up with these little theories are now actually conversing in the thread.

I saw this earlier today and it completely slipped my mind to bring it to your attention. It's almost not even worth commenting on the kind of dicussion that happens over there. Good for a laugh or two though.

Having read many of Constamend1's posts to the yahoo boards and also many of the MAResearchers articles on SeekingAlpha, I think it's pretty clear that they're the same person. Their writing style and their viewpoints are exactly the same. The question is... Why is Constamend contributing to the yahoo board? It's certainly not because he's just a curious bystander... you don't post 8 thousand messages in a years time if you don't have skin in the game. The man is paid to have an opinion... whether that translates to the message boards or not, he's not there for fun... though it's clear he does enjoy it.